With the cross, paddle and a fishing rod

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Father Konstantin and his team have been walking on Harbey (Subpolar Urals) and on the Crow river (Kola Peninsula).
There is still a lot of plans…

A river called Zhizdra in the most upstream parts of the eponymous town into two parts. This river is small, then, under Kozelsk, it will be both wide and deep. The desire to see her in the spring and spill I have every year.

Some nice pictures of the spill could not: the sun never came out from behind the leaden clouds. So even began to drizzle a fine rain. Returning home, on riverside street I saw a man pulling on the back of the assembled catamaran and pontoon was tied two-bladed kayak paddle. I recognized him. This was the father of Constantine, the Abbot of Holy protection Church in our city.

– Hello, father Constantine, – I welcomed him, really understand Your desire to pass on the “big water” in the flood of the river, but the day is cloudy, rainy and cold.
Father Constantine put the catamaran on the ground, wiped his forehead with droplets of sweat, or rain and smiled.
– Here see, – he said, – bought in the autumn in Moscow at the exhibition catamaran for our water tourist club and look forward to all winter long waited for will reveal the river to be tested. After all, we in may are going to hike in Karelia, and need to be confident in his driving performance.
I knew that father Konstantin has been in water tourism, he when Church parish school created the club “Gardarika” and with children walking on the rivers and lakes on hikes.
– What is the river in Karelia, are you going camping? I asked the priest. Because Karelia is large, and the river is different.
Father Constantine smiled again and said that on the Internet studying different versions of the campaign and have not yet decided where they will go.
In Karelia, I was not once, because I also love water sports, and with father Constantine we had a lively conversation about Hiking, the rivers and travel: who, where, when passed, been, seen. However, father Constantine realized that still need to go to the river, and said to me:
– And visit us in the evening for tea, and we can talk.

The offer to help him to bring the catamaran to the river he politely refused, citing the fact that the transfer of the catamaran alone is also included in the testing program. Put him on his back and hurried to the river. Tall, slender, he easily carried this craft, which travel in the circles referred to simply as “b”.

And in the evening over a Cup of fragrant tea we watched on the computer the pictures of the campaigns, talked about those places where there were: about the rivers and lakes, fishing, mushrooms-berries, children who walk with him in the campaign, recalled various funny stories that happened in travel.

Father Constantine was a very interesting conversationalist, and we promised each other to meet and share experiences about new campaigns.

 

A river called Zhizdra in the most upstream parts of the eponymous town into two parts. This river is small, then, under Kozelsk, it will be both wide and deep. The desire to see her in the spring and spill I have every year.

My home town the river divides, as I have said, into two parts: the “old” and “new” city. “Old” – this is the beginning of the city of Zhizdra, which grew out of the settlement, the settlement that arose near Zhizdra Trinity monastery. The monastery stood at the mouth of the small river Brodno, joined the Zhizdra. It was wooden and burned down in ancient times, but around it grew a large, economically prosperous village. In 1778, when the administrative reform Empress Catherine II awarded a number of villages in the Kaluga Viceroyalty status of cities. So the city Zhizdra received its coat of arms: in a silver field shows the Zhizdra river, a tributary of the Oka river, and three wooden raft of entwined Golden ropes. Rafts symbolically display a large amount of timber, which floated to the Oka and forth on it. The city flourished, and Zhizdra district was the largest in the Kaluga province. Before the war of 1941-1945. in the Zhizdra survived five churches, but during the retreat of the Nazis they were destroyed, and the city itself is wiped off the face of the earth. Not remained intact to a single building. Miraculously survived only a chapel to the cemetery. It became a place of worship for the Orthodox population of the city in the postwar period.

Only in 1988, the year of the 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Russia, it was decided to erect a new temple on the spot where once stood the Church of the intercession. And in 1989, Abbot of the temple was appointed father Constantine, who arrived in Zhizdra from Moscow. The service he conducted in the prayer house being built next to the temple, and plunged into work. It can be seen everywhere, and everywhere he managed. Conducted services, baptized children and adults, read the burial service over the dead, fallen soldiers whose remains have been found on the sites of former battles, from morning to evenings spent on the construction site of the new Church. He organically fit into the Patriarchal life of a small town, so loved by the townspeople, that it was kindness to call “our father”. For over 20 years he serves in the Church of our city, that love and respect its inhabitants.

Does your father Konstantin with the children of the Sunday school boating. Since 2003 when the Svyato-Pokrovsky Orthodox temple there is the water club “Gardarika”. “Gardarika” – was the name of Ancient Russia of the Baltic and Fino-Ugric tribes. Garganica – country cities, and the city then stood on big and small rivers. Roads in those days especially was not, and rivers were natural waterways in the summer and toboggan in the winter icy roads. And our ancestors traveled.

In the workshops of the temple were built two rooks under the names “dir” and “Askold”. On the boats father Constantine together with the guys and went on a pilgrimage voyage. At the oars and under sail, the pilgrims sailed on the Zhizdra to ancient Kozelsk, to Svyato-Vvedenskaya Optina Pustyn, then to the Oka and to the Serpukhov. Then there were trips to the Bolva and Desna to the Svensk monastery on lake Ladoga from Priozersk to Petrokrepost.

In the campaigns there were many difficulties and hardships, but they have only tempered the guys both physically and spiritually. The children learned a lot in camp life: to breed in the rain the fire, to cook, to put up tents, to row the oars, to sail a boat, catch fish, collect mushrooms and berries. But a visit to these shrines of Orthodoxy, as the Valaam monastery, have left a lasting impression in the soul of each of them.

 

Father Konstantin and his team have been walking on Harbey (Subpolar Urals) and on the Crow river (Kola Peninsula).
There is still a lot of plans…

Every year more and more expanded geography of places visited by the father of Constantine with the guys. And Hiking, in addition to spiritual and historical, are becoming more athletic. Water travel along the Kola Peninsula and the Polar Urals already have the 2nd and 3rd categories of complexity. On catamarans guys pass rapids, shoals and shoals of fast rivers. They saw beautiful places of our country. One trip to Lovozero and river crow, on the Barents sea under sail caused so much emotion and was an experience that children will remember for a lifetime. Because in the sea they saw and killer whales, and seals swimming near the boats. And sea fishing? How could I forget? And Hiking in the Polar Urals, on rivers Large and Small Harbau… the Beauty and harshness of this region unique and wonderful. There and the fishing is quite different. There in the clean and clear waters and is full of grayling and lenok. But the fish, mushrooms, berries – a great help in such campaigns. Many I will carry, and therefore, the ability to catch fish is one of the main Affairs in traveling. Learned during this time, guys.

We sit with father Constantine and Matushka Love, drinking tea, watching pictures, lead leisurely conversation about the places where he lived, where I’ve been, about fishing, catamarans, kayaks, and about the beauty of Russia. And suddenly I thought: he’s the priest that we used to see in a cassock, with a cross and a censer in the Orthodox service. But father Constantine so enthusiastically tells how he was catching grayling and pike that once you understand that you have a skilled and knowledgeable angler. Nothing human is alien to him. See a priest with a paddle, a fishing rod, a camera, a backpack and an ice pick – this isn’t all that unusual. But if your father’s Hobbies and attract our young people, then it should be welcome and encouraged. Everything learn guys on one of these trips, they will be useful in life. And most importantly, they will see the beauty of the country, and with the understanding that beauty will come the love of country.

Now the father of Constantine, together with the icon of Saint Nicholas takes with him on hikes and the image of St. Tryphon. And the question, as they all endure these difficulties, he usually answers: “With God’s help”.

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